I want to thank
you for writing to me and sharing your thoughts about the
ICC and freedom of speech in our country Canada.

With regard to
the ICC, as I indicated in my recent interview with Salam
Toronto the ICC is not a political party mandated to oppose
the Iranian regime. There are several of those political
parties in diaspora who are doing just that. On the other
side, it is also obvious that the ICC is not an entity to
promote the Iranian regime or try to bring excuse to the
regime’s actions. As I said in that interview, the ICC’s
mandate is to look after the interest of the Iranian
community in Canada and promote our community’s profile in
our country, Canada.

As a community we cannot expect our Congress to stay silent
and do nothing when it comes to celebrating Khomeini or any
high ranking officials of the regime. The
recent celebration of Khomeini by the Islamic Centre of York
Region was a slap in the face of the Iranian community. If
we assume that some of those individuals who participated in
this celebration at the Centre are South-Asian Canadians
originally from Uganda, then if we Iranians celebrated Idy
Amin, I am confident that those individuals will be very
upset.

As Canadians we
are not supposed to celebrate Hitler, Stalin, Polpod, Idy
Amin and likes. The Carlton University professor should
know better that there is a difference between freedom of
speech and celebrating tyrants such as Hitler and likes.
Our Canadian values do not allow us to celebrate these
people or remain indifferent and silent when others do.

As far as the
ICC is concerned, the line between human rights issues in
Iran (which is of interest for the Iranian community) and
opposing the regime is clear. If the ICC does not react on
human rights issues in Iran, it will become irrelevant. In
the main time, the ICC should be careful not to act as an
Iranian opposition political party.

All this require
skilful leadership and I am sure that discussions such as
this as you have initiated could be helpful in fine tuning
the role of the ICC so that it fully reflects the aspiration
and vision of our community.

Perhaps the
newly elected Board organize an open discussion on the roles
and responsibilities as well as the vision and mission of
the ICC to clarify some of these controversial points for
the Iranian public. I think we both agree that these are the
points that should be clarified in the minds of the public
so that their expectations from the ICC remain within the
boundaries of its well defined and documented vision,
mission and by-laws.

Payam Akhavan, Faculty
of Law, McGill University
Amir Hassanpour, ret, University of
Toronto
Ramin Jahanbegloo, Center for Ethics,
University of Toronto
Haideh Moghissi, Equity Studies, Trudeau
Fellow, York University
Shahrzad Mojab, OISE, University of
Toronto
Mo Mojahedi, Electrical and Computer
Engineering, University of Toronto
Omid Peyrow-Shabani, Philosophy,
University of Guelph
Saeed Rahnema, Political Science and
Public Policy, York University
Peyman Vahabzadeh, Sociology, University
of Victoria,Farrokh Zandi,
Schulich Business School, York
University

Over the past few days I have talked to a
number of friends and ICC members regarding
the need to refute the recent onslaught of
personal attacks against our fellow Iranian
Canadians who participated in the mourning
procession of Ashura. This event despite its
legal legitimacy protected under the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom,
Section 2 became the subject of confusion
among many Iranian Canadians as certain
individuals tried to label it under
pejorative terms. Some of the local media in
the community have also been influenced by
this and published articles in condemning
the event as barbaric and uncivilized. The
magnitude of such negative propaganda
disseminated by these groups has gone beyond
the Iranian circle and the sheer ignorance
of their messages (e.g. Iranian Shia
Storming Streets of Toronto) have induced
fear among none Iranian Canadians who
associated the black clad mourners to ISIS.
Some of the messages commented under the
Facebook posts of these rather antagonistic
figures are clear threats to use violence
and can be interpreted on par with hate
speech. This is rather unfortunate as many
other similar religious and non religious
processions in this city have been organized
while no similar controversy has been risen
out of them. Given the popularity of the
Ashura commemoration within the Iranian
Muslim community and the likelihood of its
occurrence in the future, we would like to
know whether ICC would want to clarify its
position vis-a-vie the freedom of religious
beliefs and freedom of association in order
to be the voice for those who have become
the subject of insults and humiliation as a
result of these individual’s recent campaign
of fear and shame.

Suggestion: Considering the controversy
of the issue, I suggest that in order to
maintain a neutral position and at the same
time avoid any possible association with
religious organizations perhaps ICC can
declare its position only in regards to
“freedom of association” and the peaceful
nature of religious processions. This way
members of the Iranian Muslim community can
too find representation in ICC through
public reiteration of their civil rights and
ICC can also avoid direct confrontation with
other groups who seek to link the congress
to nefarious political agendas or infamous
individuals.

Many thanks for your e-mail (copy attached
below) and apologies for the delay in
responding. The board of directors of the
Iranian Canadian Congress has deliberated on
the content of your message and would like
to share the following as a response. As you
have indicated in your message, recently a
group of Iranians in Toronto used their
right to freedom of association and held a
procession to commemorate Ashura. As
witnessed in some photos, Canadian police
provided security for them and, fortunately,
the procession was completed with no
incident. In reaction to this procession, a
few individuals in our community left
comments in various social media venues or
wrote articles in Persian weeklies
condemning this event. Several of our board
members share the sentiment with you that
some of these comments were totally
distasteful and even offensive. Crucially,
the majority of the board does not see it as
the business of the Iranian Canadian
Congress to look around the various internet
or media outlets and pass value judgments
about statements that individuals within our
community have made about various issues.
We, therefore, find issuing a statement with
respect to these comments outside the
mandate of this organization. Had the
individuals been prevented from holding the
Ashura procession by the government or even
private individuals, our response could have
been different. We are fully committed to
promoting tolerance and inclusiveness in our
community.

One of the first documents we put
out after the new board started its work was
a code of conduct for all ICC meetings. This
document, which can be found on our website,
focuses on tolerance and acceptance of all
individuals with no discrimination based on
sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion,
political affiliation, etc. We also held an
event on the occasion of the International
Peace Day whose main theme was tolerance. We
will continue to do everything in our power
to promote these values in our community.
Nevertheless, in our opinion, tolerance
cannot be achieved in the environment of
condemnation, especially when it comes from
an organization whose goal is to represent
the Iranian-Canadian community in its
entirety. Our goal is to promote the culture
of tolerance in the whole of our community.
If the behaviour of a segment of our
community is intolerant toward another
segment, ICC’s condemnation of the behaviour
of that segment will not necessarily lead to
a more tolerant and inclusive community, but
will most likely isolate that segment and
push them further into their intolerant
behaviour. Our attempt to be more inclusive
of one segment of our community should not
come at the cost of giving the impression
that we are excluding another. While the
current board has done nothing to suggest
that we are not inclusive of the more
religious segments of our community, we
would be more than happy to take a more
proactive stance to underline our
inclusiveness in this respect. In future, we
will look for ways of showing positive
gestures toward this sector of our society
in contexts which fall within the bylaws and
mandate of the ICC as a non-religious,
non-partisan and non-profit organization.
Also, in order to address the concerns
raised with respect to the Ashura procession
and the reaction to this event, we would
like to hold a panel discussion and invite
the organizers as well as the critics of the
event to come and have a constructive
dialogue about all the issues surrounding
this event. It is in this environment of
dialogue where we can hope to internalize
tolerance and acceptance of one another in
our community. In conclusion, we appreciate
your concerns about the lack of tolerance in
our community and invite you to join us in
the path toward a more inclusive and
tolerant society, a path that passes through
exercising tolerance in our own behaviour,
promoting peaceful dialogue and enhancing
the education of these values in our
community. Warmest regards, Board of
Directors, Iranian Canadian Congress

As you may know ICC is going to hold its
first open forum on this coming Sunday
January 24 between 2:30 and 5:00 pm, room #
3 at North York Civic Centre. Two topics
will be discussed:

1)The demonstration of some members of
our community against the 26th
anniversary of Khomeini's death organized by
Islamic Society of York Region on May 31st
in Richmond Hill.

2)The religious march of Ashura in
North York on October 24th.

You are aware that these two events have
created broad and heated discussions that
still continue in the community. Although it
would be better if the forum was held
earlier we believe dialogue is always
helpful to bring the opponents closer to
each other.

Your presence and participation in this
meeting will be useful and well appreciated.